Anxiety Signaling
“Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.”
This quote is possibly a good indicator as to why anxiety is the most common mental illness in the U.S. The more we learn about what's happening in the world around us, hope diminishes and worry increases. Anxiety is directly related to the future, so if we can't see how things could be anything other than bad, then we are stuck. Our limited control and power set us up to accept having an overwhelming sense of fear of the "inevitable" desperate state of affairs.
Even though most would agree that being afflicted by anxiety is bad, I've experienced the bizarre phenomenon where people seem to revel in it to some extent. In each occasion, the anxiety was directed towards something that was completely outside their control, i.e. climate change, COVID, systemic racism, etc. Basically, problems that are so large that one person can't singlehandedly change them. In one instance I saw a parent take visible pride in the fact that their young child had intense anxiety over climate change. Though this, as well as the other issues, are major points of concern, I couldn't help but wonder why such a negative emotion was being held up as a kind of badge.
My assumption is that, since large scale problems demand large scale solutions, anxiety is a way to signal one's allegiance. It's a way to show support for a cause as it's the only way one may feel like they can contribute. There are at least two issues I have with this position.
The first, is that I can't help but think that embracing anxiety is counterproductive, since it contributes to nothing other than implying a value system. The shock that people have in learning that others may not feel the same is then leveraged to shame people into submitting to the "good". There is no real change in this scenario other than the gratification one might have in believing they attempted to convert someone. The shamed person isn't converted though, they are only silenced. This isn't a long term solution as a result. And though a battle may have been won, it has done nothing for the war. Things are only left to fester in silence.
The other issue I find is that this expression of anxiety only shows we've forfeited the power we actually have out of a sense of pragmatism. It says that everything is too big and we are too small to make meaningful contributions. We necessarily leave ourselves to the mercy of the powers that be and the best case scenario is that someone else will turn things around. My stance is that, though we may not have as much control in the world as we'd like, we still have some. To conclude that anxiety is the appropriate response to life relinquishes our agency and usually hope itself. As a result, things like creative solutions and actions become nearly impossible. And, if we are hopeless, we usually refrain even from practical contributions, such as volunteering or donating, because…what's the point.
In first world countries these two options of volunteering and donating are possible for many if not most of us. If we could forgo buying alcohol one night of the month, or going out to eat that same night, we could give that money to a cause we believe in. I'm not using this example to imply that everyone needs to do this, or that we have to give up having fun to show we care about an issue, but that there are feasible ways we can contribute. By using anxiety as a virtue signal the likelihood of taking these simple actions recedes.
I know first hand the difficulty of anxiety. It's an epidemic of sorts, so I don't say any of this without empathy for those that suffer from it. My only point here is to state that hope is not lost and, as a result, we should not be using anxiety as a way to show solidarity. Instead, we need to realize that making intentional actions towards our desired social goals is within reach of all of us on some level. And, it’s ok if these contributions are humble.